Exploring Health Care
The national debate over the future of health care security is complex and confusing to many Americans. There is little doubt that the country is in the midst of a health care crisis as more than 100 million Americans find themselves underinsured, uninsured and without adequate health care. Advocates on multiple sides of the debate inundate voters with various plans, statistics, prescriptions, and political sloganeering. Yet, the confusion remains.
It is our hope at Cognitive Policy Works that these materials will help you to better understand the logic of the health care debate and the vital role of political cognition in advancing an effective progressive reform agenda.
The Big Report
A good starting point is the report, Don’t Think of a Sick Child: The Logic of the Health Care Debate. It was written by George Lakoff, Glenn W. Smith, Eric Haas, and Scott Parkinson at the Rockridge Institute.
Supplemental Articles
The following articles explore health care from many different angles. They are generally organized around the organizations and individuals who wrote them.
Articles from Cognitive Policy Works
The Policyspeak Disaster for Health Care (August 20, 2009)
The Moral Language of Health Care Reform (August 24, 2009)
Is Health Care Like a Food Processor? (September 23, 2009)
Sara Robinson’s Work
How Universal Health Care Changes Everything (October 28, 2008)
Broken Health Care: What It Really Costs Us (June 24, 2009)
Mythbusting Canadian Health Care — Part 1 (February 4, 2008)
Mythbusting Canadian Health Care, Part 2: Debunking the Free Marketeers (February 11, 2008)
Writings from the Rockridge Institute
The Meaning of Socialized Medicine (September 18, 2007)
Don’t Think of a Sick Child (October 22, 2007)
Could You Explain a Vote Against Children’s Health to Our Children? (September 26, 2007)
Who’s Afraid of Sick Kids? (October 10, 2007)
SCHIP and the Rigged Health Insurance Game (October 26, 2007)
An Essay on the Blackwatering of Health Care (November 7, 2007)
Health Care Bargains for Everyone on Your List (November 21, 2007)
In Health Care, the Market Mindset is Hard to Break (November 5, 2007)
We Owe Our Veterans Health Care (October 31, 2007)
Where’s the Healthy Debate, CNN? (November 29, 2007)
The Importance of Mental Health (October 19, 2007)
Other Noteworthy Resources
A Rose By Any Other Name (Discussion of health care as consumer transation by Anat Shenker, October 1, 2009)
Thinking Collectively About Health Care (Discussion of values in health care by Maggie Mahar, October 5, 2009)
